


The Selkie and the Sailor

by deathwailart



Category: Original Work
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Female Character of Color, Selkies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-21
Updated: 2013-03-21
Packaged: 2017-12-06 00:34:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/729644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sailor becomes jealous and steals the skin of the selkie who visits him, trapping her as she tries to get her skin back so she can return to her home beneath the waves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Selkie and the Sailor

**letters from the selkie to a sailor**  
_i._  
Does it surprise you that I know my letters and how to put quill to paper? Does it ruin your illusions to find that I am like so many other women? Or does it drive you mad with jealousy to realise that you are not the first man to know me and that others knew me when I was young and innocent, men who taught me what selkie men cannot? I do not ask to hurt or set you aflame only to have you see me as I am and not whatever image you hold in your mind.  
  
I have gone back to the sea so do not look for me but be kind to the seals I call my kin. I will come again sweet sailor, do not fear. Live your life, cast your eyes to the horizon and work hard as ever until I return to you with pearls about my neck and shells in my hair.  
  
ii.  
If you had me always you would cease to want me - you love me as you love the sea, chasting storms, unpredictability, for though you curse the wind and waves you curse calm lulls more bitterly. You would not want me when I am quiet and still, curled up with tea or a book or whatever it is surface women like; my eyes would be full of longing for faraway places. You fear the terrible depths that might drag you down, down, down to your doom. You feel alive in a storm. Do you remember when you told me that darling as we lay here in your bed with the wind rattling the windows in their panes, the rain beating hard against the roof? You feel so alive in those moments. I am the sea, I am the storm and you cannot have me always or you will get nowhere, drowned with your pretty hull smashed and all your masts cracked, sails tattered and billowing. Food for fish and crabs and other things until it's just your bones on the seabed and a decaying wreck bobbing until it is gone and they cease to mourn you.  
  
iii.  
It will be the last time I see you. You were angry, foul tempered like the northern wind. Not like my selkie husband. All is softer beneath the waves where we ebb and flow but up here it is so much harsher. How have I slighted you sailor? Would you prefer me to lie and be your dream, this false image you spoke of at our first meeting? I would not be flattered at such a suggestion. I should be free to be who I am, not who you wish for me to be. I belong to myself about all things. Farewell bonnie sailor and should you founder on the rocks or be placed in harm's way by a storm, know that I will see you safe to shore.  
  
**the years she sat in sea longing**  
Her third letter, her last letter, should have been the last thing of hers he had but he had kept watch for her that second time she had left, knowing that she rose from his bed to write and leave a letter before disappearing. Before reading her letter he had merely wish to see her skin out of sheer curiousity and to witness her warm dark skin become something grey and slippery, to see her change from one thing into something else entirely. He'd found her hiding spot in a sheltered rock pool to keep it soft and supple and easy to return to. A sense of awe had filled him as she leapt into the waves. He had returned to read the letter she had left and a rage had descended over him, cursing this sea temptress for thinking she could toy with him in such a manner. What did she know of him? Flaunting some supposed deeper knowledge the way she had the other men she had been with, more learned men. He had gone to sea and caught seals to sell their skins for a hefty price, drinking in the taverns with most avoiding him and his wrath. It was an old salt he'd sailed with as a lad who'd joined him with fresh pints, the only one who knew of his selkie lover. Over strong ale they'd spoke, the old man laughing quietly.  
  
"I have myself a selkie wife, young and fair as she was when she first came ashore."  
  
"How did you make her stay?"  
  
"Steal her skin laddie, if you have that she cannot return and she will stay. She's got nowhere to go. Keeps a good house, births a rare sailor. I promised her the skin when I am on my deathbed. It keeps her sweet and smiling to know it is not forever."  
  
"How do I keep it?"  
  
"Lock it in a chest and bury it or keep it with you always. Only you must know that if she spies she will seize it and run even if she leaves behind children."  
  
So he had waited for her to return, spying each evening he was on land until he had spotted her rising from the same pool, hurrying to his home bare but for shells and pearls. His mood had not abated entirely even with a plan set and her eating fish stew with him, wrapped up in one of his shirts. He had slipped out to check a boat, a lie she had believed and he had run as fast as his legs could carry him to grab the skin, wet and slippery, from the rock pool. When he'd locked it in a chest hidden beneath old nets and a rowboat he had worried she would smell it on him but the dishes had been tidied away and she had been in his bed. A vision. A queen of the sea with her thick curls spread across the pillows with strands of white pearls wrapped around her body.  
  
He'd slept well. He hadn't woken she she rose to write him a letter, only when his door had closed had he woken to light the lamp and read her leter. He had planned to offer her the same terms his friend had offered to his wife but her words were so hurtful to him and his pride that he changed his mind. She returned to him sobbing, crying for her skin. He hadn't been moved, telling her she only had herself to blame and had gone to buy her shoes and dresses, locking the door tight behind him. The chest he stowed on his ship, locked in another chest in his cabin so a piece of her was with her when he was away at sea, her at home with the children she bore him swiftly, three fine strong sons to inherit what was his. She loved the sons and did as she was told. She shared his bend, mended clothes, cooked meals, dutiful and sweet but she fell into silence often, eyes on the sea or standing on the shore with the tide lapping at her ankles. Trapped unless she wanted to drown but not yet. She still had hope that when their sons were grown, when he was old and his sandy hair gone grey his ruddy complexion lost to the ravages of the years, that he would tell her where to find her skin so she would see her selkie husband again.  
  
But a storm swallowed him, his ship and her skin. Her useless in the house unable to to swim and bring him to shore. Her sons left to sail with other captains leaving her alone. The boys did not know of what she was, her husband had feared her skin and her being stolen too greatly to tell another soul but his old friend and so for years she searched but never did she see her skin again. She grey drawn and wan, staring out at the home forever sundered from her until the grief grew too great for her to bear.  
  
so she cast herself into the raging depths to return the only way she could  
Sever tears she sheds into the sea though it will not summon her selkie husband to her until it is too later. For miles she walks to follow the sea, climbing higher as she goes until she stands atop the high cliffs, gulls wheeling and screaming above her. The wind tugs at her thin shift and tangle of dark curls set with shells and pearls. The waves crash against the rocks, jagged as shark's teeth, below her. Her body will be smashed upon those rocks and her cry of pain will let the water rush in to flood her nose and mouth. She will drown and sink, carried out to sea. Never to rejoin her family as she wishes but at least she will go to the place she belongs.  
  
The shift is shed, whipped away by the wind. She dives, eyes closed, welcoming the cold embrace of the sea.


End file.
